The invention relates to a new diagnostic and computational system for collecting and processing a person's life-process data such as electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, temperature and respiratory data, during waking states and sleep-dream states and portable for use at home, in the field, factory and among the armed forces of the nation.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,230,125 issued Oct. 28, 1980 to Daniel E. Schneider, M.D., the inventor also hereof, there is described a method and apparatus for obtaining from a person's body a combined electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (EKG) signal--both integrated into a single continuous tracing--denominated therein a QREEG signal. The QREEG signal is uniquely obtained, moreover, by obtaining the EEG signal component in the usual way from one or more electrodes appropriately positioned on the person's head, but obtaining the EKG signal component with an electrode uniquely in region of the seventh cervical vertebra. In this way, between any two heart QR peaks (the signal-tracing of the heart's left ventricle), there are normally interposed eight alpha waves of lower voltage than the QR's.
In the patent, the QREEG signal components are combined directly for a common display device or a common amplifier for signal processing. The displayed QR signal-tracing of the QREEG is absolutely simultaneous with the QR wave component of the EKG tracing. Between these QR major peaks the eight smaller voltage waveforms of the alpha wave frequency of the EEG signal component, as already noted above. If the displayed QREEG signal tracing were to be superimposed upon any simultaneous EKG tracing, the QR peaks of the two tracings would match precisely, under normal conditions. The patent suggests that it is therefore possible to identify those alpha waves from the QREEG which correspond to those waves of the EKG commonly designated the P and S-T waves.